The Dance/Movement Therapy Alternate Route track (AR-DMT), seeks to inspire, develop and educate students in an age old paradigm—the use of dance and movement as a tool for healing the body, mind and spirit. The AR-DMT program is tailored to current and future therapists who seek to advance their practical knowledge of psychotherapy and the therapeutic relationship using the creative process involved in the art of dance. The AR-DMT offers sequential curriculum, taught by expert faculty, fulfilling the requirements set forth by the American Dance Therapy Association. The student that successfully completes AR-DMT coursework in addition to a Master’s in counseling or related field, will obtain the body of knowledge necessary to apply to the Dance Movement Therapy Certification Board for the R-DMT credential.
Course Offerings
All classes except Experiential Anatomy/Kinesiology need faculty approval prior to enrollment. Prospective AR-DMT students are responsible for contacting individual course providers to ascertain additional admission requirements for all courses. Courses are $425/credit (28 total credits) with payment plans available.
2021-2022 Course Curriculum
SPRING 2021:
- DMT: Intro and Invitation - Online - Wednesdays, 9 am - 12 pm CST - 10 consecutive weeks beginning February 10
- LMA I: Observation - Online - Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14 - 9 am - 6 pm CST/CDT
- Human Development: Interpersonal Neurobiology - Online - Tuesdays, 6 pm - 9 pm CDT - 10 consecutive weeks beginning April 6
- Cultural Humility - Online - Two weekend format on April 9 - 11 and April 30 - May 2 - Friday, 6 pm - 9 pm CDT - Saturday and Sunday, 9 am - 4 pm CDT
- Experiential Anatomy/Kinesiology - Online - Friday, April 23, Saturday, April 24, and Sunday, April 25 - 12 pm - 6 pm CDT
- LMA II: Body and Effort - In person, Covid permitting - Mondays, 6 pm - 9 pm CDT - Beginning April 19
SPRING II / SUMMER 2021:
- DMT I: The Chace Approach - Hybrid (online and in-person) - Two weekend format - Times and Dates TBA
SUMMER 2021:
- Group Dynamics - In-person - Tuesdays, 6 pm - 9pm - Start date TBA
- LMA I: Observation - Times and Dates TBA
- Experiential Anatomy/Kinesiology - Times and Dates TBA
FALL 2021:
- LMA III: Shape and Space - In-person - Times and Dates TBA
- Neuroscience of Embodied Presence - In-person - Times and Dates TBA
Course Descriptions
Cultural Humility and Responsibility through the Power of Story
Instructor: Rosey Puloka
Online Course
Dates/Times: Two weekend format on April 9 - 11 and April 30 - May 2 - Friday, 6 pm - 9 pm CDT - Saturday and Sunday, 9 am - 4 pm CDT
Cost: $850
For more information, email: embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com
As dance/movement therapists we are bound by our code of ethics, which serves as our guide to upholding professional values and standards of conduct. Multicultural competence and promotion of social justice are included in the code. Additionally, dance/movement therapists are expected to examine how their own cultural background influences their place within the therapeutic relationship. In this course, students will be invited to examine and expand their own belief systems and world views in service of providing ethical and competent care for clients. The vehicle for this process will be conducted through story; the stories we have been told and the stories we tell ourselves, which all live in our bodies, our movement, and in our relationships. The code of ethics also charges dance/movement therapists with cultivating awareness of oppression, power, and privilege. In this course students will explore how power, privilege, oppression, and collective liberation intersect with our work as dance/movement therapists. Students will explore how key features of oppression show up on societal/cultural, institutional, interpersonal, and individual levels. By observing and making contact with the ways in which we have been affected by dynamics of privilege and oppression we can begin to repattern habitual ways of being that may interfere with cultivating connection with others. In this course, systematic oppression will be looked at through the lens of trauma providing students the opportunity to apply trauma-informed and healing centered approaches to their therapeutic work.
2 credit hours / 30 classroom hours - Approved by the ADTA
Dance/Movement Therapy: An Introduction and an Invitation
Instructor: Kim Rothwell
Online Course
Dates/Times: Wednesdays, 9 am - 12 pm CST - 10 consecutive weeks beginning February 10
Cost: $850
For more information, email: embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com
Course Description: This course provides a survey of the field of dance/movement therapy (DMT), including an introduction to the early developers of the profession, the historical context within the United States that lead to the development of the profession and the ADTA, and contemporary applications of DMT in today’s global world. The approach to teaching is embodied, self-reflective, and relational, offering an invitation for students to learn in ways that embed both the theory and the practice of DMT into the present moment lived experience. Early DMT developers will be acknowledged, and explored in an experiential manner recognizing psychological and movement/dance backgrounds. The historical situatedness of the profession of dance/movement therapy will be examined, while acknowledging the broader global context in which the use of dance and movement has been used across generations and cultures. By exploring the contemporary applications of DMT in the fields of psychology, wellness, rehabilitation, education, and childhood development, this course highlights the unique healing processes of DMT, in relationship to other mind/body approaches and to the creative arts therapies. In the end, this course will equip students to develop a working definition of DMT for themselves within historical, cultural, and personal contexts.
2 credit hours / 30 classroom hours - Approved by the ADTA
Dance/Movement Therapy I: The Chace Approach
Instructor: Laura Allen, LCPC, BC-DMT, GL-CMA
Hybrid Course: online and in-person, COVID-19 permitting
Location: Serenity@Sauganash, 4055 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL 60646
Dates/Times: Two weekend format - Times and Dates TBA
Cost: $850, 2 credit hours/30 classroom hours
For more information, email: embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to the historical and theoretical contributions of dance/movement therapy (DMT) founder, Marian Chace. Chace’s framework for DMT sessions, her four core concepts (body action, symbolism, therapeutic movement relationship, and group rhythmic action), and the historical/cultural/healthcare context from which her approach emerged will be addressed in depth. Students will examine the strengths-based nature of Chace’s approach paired with various psychological theories and consider its limitations as well. Through various experiential learning approaches, DMT facilitation skills will be introduced and applied.
2 credit hours / 30 classroom hours - Approved by the ADTA
Experiential Anatomy/Kinesiology
Instructor: Madeleine Reber
Online Course
Dates/Times: Friday, April 23, Saturday, April 24, and Sunday, April 25 - 12 pm - 6 pm CDT
Cost: $425, paid via Venmo @eeichicago
For movers, dancers, movement practitioners/artists, dance/movement therapists, teachers, and anyone who wants to deepen their embodiment and understanding of the amazing ways our bodies move. Engaging experiential and somatic modes of learning this course will cover basic human anatomy and kinesiology with an overview of bones, major muscle groups, and general workings of the musculoskeletal system. Students will begin to understand the complexities of the body through movement, reading, drawing, discussion, writing, video, and touch exercises. We will integrate what we learn from tuning into our individual sensed experience, observations of the world (and bodies) around us, and material information from the fields of anatomy and kinesiology. It is important to note that study of “the body,” our bodies, does not exist outside of the particular societies and cultures in which we live. Our work in this course acknowledges the impact and influence of culture on traditions of teaching anatomy, and the importance and relevance of our individual experiences of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, ability, on lived embodied experience and body knowledge.
To enroll, email at embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com or call 773-359-3097
1 credit hour / 15 classroom hours
Alternate Route in Dance/Movement Therapy requirement
Once enrolled, you will be sent the syllabus and login information.
Human Development: Interpersonal Neurobiology
Instructor: Kris Eric Larsen LCPC, BC-DMT, GLCMA
Email: klarsen.eeic@gmail.com
Phone: 312-405-9475
Online Course
Dates/Times: Tuesdays, 6 pm - 9 pm CDT - 10 consecutive weeks beginning April 6
Cost: $850 paid through Venmo @eeichicago
For more information, email: embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com
Course Description: Dance/Movement Therapy has provided for us a pathway into the expressive nature of movement and its related emotional meaning. Moving the body engages the emotional system (the brain) as mind and body join together on an expressive, and often creative, journey of dance. As dance movement therapists, we have often looked at both the functional and expressive meaning of movement and yet, have we given enough attention to the subtleties found between emotional expression and the related micro-movements of the body/mind interrelationship.
This course introduces students to the intricate world of the brain and focuses upon the interrelationship between mind, body and relationships. Studies of brain development and the ways in which dance movement therapy can assist in repatterning insecure attachments and their subsequent encoded neuronal pathways is necessary in keeping the field up to date. The development of therapeutic interventions that consider developmental, biological and cultural contexts will be discussed as well.
2 credit hours / 30 classroom hours - Approved by the ADTA
Prerequisite: TBA
Laban Movement Analysis I: Observation
Instructor: Stacey Hurst
Online course
Dates/Times: Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14 - 9 am - 6 pm CST/CDT
Cost: $425
Call Stacey at 312-543-2133 or email shurst.eeic@gmail.com with questions
Course Description: Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) and Bartenieff Fundamentals (BF) give dance/movement therapists a common language to study movement and its developmental aspects, informing our relationship to self, other, and the environment. LMA I contexts LMA and BF in history and within the field of dance/movement therapy. This course provides: a framework for how to structure and approach movement observation, an understanding of the cultural and therapeutic implications of Body Knowledge/Body Prejudice and a forum for the student to identify their own movement preferences and limitations. LMA I will also provide a general overview of the core principles of movement and of Rudolf Laban’s taxonomy of human movement. The course will be grounded through both didactic and movement experientials to support multiple learning preferences. LMA I will provide the foundation for all other LMA classes to follow.
1 credit hour / 15 classroom hours - Approved by the ADTA
Laban Movement Analysis II: Body and Effort
Instructor: Stacey Hurst
Location: TBA
Dates: In person, Covid permitting - Mondays, 6 pm - 9 pm CDT - Beginning April 19
Cost: $1275
For more information, email: embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com
Course Description: This course will continue the process of providing knowledge and skill development regarding the use of the Laban Taxonomy of Movement Analysis in order to observe, document, describe, and assess human movement behavior through the lens of BODY and EFFORT categories (SPACE and SHAPE will be taught in LMA III). In addition, students will gain more information about Irmgard Bartenieff’s contributions to LMA and begin to create Laban/Bartenieff informed DMT warm-ups. Students will continue to explore how sociocultural content and psychological defenses manifest in body/movement and how sociocultural background and “protection” informs movement preferences. The written work and verbal discussions will be used, not only to gain knowledge and process experiences, but to practice communicating the material to other professionals outside of our field.
3 credit hours / 45 classroom hours - Pending approval by the ADTA
Prerequisite: LMA I
Laban Movement Analysis III: Shape and Space
Instructor: TBA
Location: TBA
Dates: TBA, Fall 2021
Cost: $1275
For more information, email: embodiededucationinstitute@gmail.com
Course Description: TBA
TBA - credit hours / classroom hours - Pending approval by the ADTA
Prerequisite: TBA
The Neuroscience of Embodied Presence: Moving within the Inter-subjective Realm
Instructor: Kris Eric Larsen LCPC, BC-DMT, GLCMA
Location: Serenity@Sauganash, 4055 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL 60646
Dates/Times: TBA, Fall 2021
Cost: $850
For more information, email: klarsen.eeic@gmail.com
Course Description: Embedded within the intersubjective relationship is the opportunity for present moment experiences of self and other. As dance/movement therapists we are utilizing our bodies as intuitive processors within the therapeutic relationship and thus in need to be conscious of how we create presence in our own bodies for self-care and within the relationship for intervention and healing. Current discoveries in neuroscience and mindfulness find the field of psychology integrating the mind and the body in ways that are both new and creative. This course introduces students to in-roads for creating presence, mindful self-care, identification of personal creative process and critical inquiry of neuroscientific discussions that integrate and navigate the flow of mind and the flow of bodies in movement.
2 credit hours / 30 classroom hours - Approved by the ADTA
Prerequisite: Acceptance into EEIC program
Registration can be paid through Venmo at eiichicago or Zelle at embodiededucationinstitute@